Streaming boom in lockdown
Lockdown saw a 39% increase in the hours spent watching streaming services.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under Coronavirus, Streaming, Subscription, Top Stories
No surprises for evidence that Streaming has boomed during the pandemic lockdown.
Deloitte Media Consumer Survey reports that lockdown restrictions saw a huge 39% increase in the hours spent watching paid movie and television streaming services.
More than 2,000 consumers were surveyed from March to May.
55% of respondents have at least one paid video streaming service. 10% of all respondents signed up to a new streaming video service during lockdown, almost double those who already had at least one service, where 17% of those added an additional one.
18% of Millennials aged 31 – 36 were the most likely to add a new service, followed by Millennials aged 14 – 30 (15%) and Gen X aged 37 – 53 (10%).
95% of all streaming service subscribers are active paying Netflix subscribers.
32% of streaming subscribers have Stan, followed by Amazon’s Prime Video (24%) and relative newcomer Disney+ (22%). In the six months since its Australian launch Disney+ is hitting similar subscription numbers to what Stan (26% in 2018) and Amazon Prime took three years and two years respectively to reach. NB: There don’t appear to be any results for Apple TV+ or other services.
Between March to May lockdown, Netflix experienced a 7% increase from respondents. But Disney+ saw a 37% growth with children’s content catalogue sought after by families during the lockdown. Amazon Prime (25% growth) and Stan (18% growth) also benefited significantly.
34% of also respondents say it’s at least very important to be able to access Australian movie content, and 32% favour Australian TV drama (32%). Factual TV is seen as even more important at 40%.
Deloitte notes that while the debate on the relevance of quotas, (and, in particular, the obligations of streaming services) continues, the importance of local content to audiences remains clear.
News also boomed during lockdown with press conferences becoming appointment viewing.
90% of respondents used television to get News. 66% used television as a daily source of news, and over a third used it multiple times a day. Daily use was largely driven by older viewers. Online news websites (other than online newspapers) were used daily by 42% of respondents, 38% of respondents used Facebook daily for news.